Emergency notification system utilizing digital signage and remote surveillance monitoring

Abstract

An emergency notification system is provided. The emergency notification system comprises an emergency notification server ( 206 ), a signage server ( 202 ), digital signage displays ( 208 ); and a data communications network ( 134 ), wherein the emergency notification server ( 206 ) is configured to communicate with the signage server ( 202 ) via the data communications network ( 134 ) and wherein the emergency notification server ( 206 ) is configured to indicate if the emergency notification system ( 100 ) is in a non-emergency state or in an emergency state, and wherein the signage server ( 202 ) serves different data to the plurality of digital signage displays ( 208 ) depending on if the state of the emergency notification system ( 100 ) is in a non-emergency state or in an emergency state.

What is claimed is: 
     
       1. An emergency notification system, comprising:
 an emergency notification server; 
 a signage server; 
 a plurality of digital signage displays; 
 a data communications network, wherein the emergency notification server is configured to communicate with the signage server via the data communications network and wherein the emergency notification server is configured to indicate if the emergency notification system is in a non-emergency state or in an emergency state, and wherein the signage server serves different data to the plurality of digital signage displays depending on if the state of the emergency notification system is in a non-emergency state or in an emergency state; and 
 wherein each of the plurality of digital signage displays is configured to display a uniform resource locator corresponding to a client instantiation; and 
 wherein the emergency notification server is configured to interact with a telephone using Interactive Voice Response and/or with a specific area message encoding receiver. 
 
     
     
       2. The emergency notification system of  claim 1 , wherein the emergency notification server is configured to communicate with the signage server via HTTP protocols. 
     
     
       3. The emergency notification system of  claim 1 , wherein the signage server is configured to periodically send heartbeat signals, and wherein each digital signage display is configured to receive said heartbeat signals, and wherein each digital signage display is configured to retrieve signage data from the backup signage server if a heartbeat signal is not detected within a predetermined time interval. 
     
     
       4. The emergency notification system of  claim 1 , further comprising at least one audio alert device and at least one audio alert device is configured to receive audio information via VOIP. 
     
     
       5. The emergency notification system of  claim 1 , wherein each of the plurality of digital signage displays is configured to display information in a plurality of display regions. 
     
     
       6. The emergency notification system of  claim 5 , wherein at least one of the display regions is configured to display a text crawl and wherein at least one of the display regions is configured to display an advertisement. 
     
     
       7. The emergency notification system of  claim 1 , wherein the uniform resource locator is a tiny URL. 
     
     
       8. The emergency notification system of  claim 1 , wherein the client instantiation further comprises a change location user interface control, wherein the change location user interface control is configured to provide an option to select a location corresponding to a particular digital signage display. 
     
     
       9. The emergency notification system of  claim 1 , wherein the client instantiation further comprises a sequence control configured to allow display of content on the client instantiation, wherein the content is content that was previously displayed on a digital signage display. 
     
     
       10. The emergency notification system of  claim 1  wherein the client instantiation further comprises a sequence control configured to allow display of content on the client instantiation, wherein the content is scheduled for future display on a digital signage display. 
     
     
       11. The emergency notification system of  claim 1 , wherein the client instantiation further comprises a sequence control configured to allow pausing of the content that is displayed in the client instantiation. 
     
     
       12. The emergency notification system of  claim 1 , wherein the signage server further comprises a web echo module, wherein the web echo module is configured to retrieve information from a plurality of public web sites. 
     
     
       13. The emergency notification system of  claim 1 , wherein the signage server is configured to send data to each of the plurality of digital signage displays via singlecast messages. 
     
     
       14. The emergency notification system of  claim 1 , wherein the signage server is configured to send data to each of the plurality of digital signage displays via multicast messages. 
     
     
       15. The emergency notification system of  claim 13 , wherein the singlecast messages of each digital signage display is based on a MAC address corresponding to each digital signage display. 
     
     
       16. An emergency notification system, comprising:
 an emergency notification server; 
 a signage server; 
 a plurality of digital signage displays; and 
 a data communications network, wherein the emergency notification server is configured to communicate with the signage server via the data communications network and wherein the emergency notification server is configured to indicate if the emergency notification system is in a non-emergency state or in an emergency state, and wherein the signage server serves different data to the plurality of digital signage displays depending on if the state of the emergency notification system is in a non-emergency state or in an emergency state; and 
 wherein each of the plurality of digital signage displays is configured to display a tiny uniform resource locator corresponding to a client instantiation, and wherein the client instantiation comprises a plurality of sequence controls. 
 
     
     
       17. The emergency notification system of  claim 16 , wherein the client instantiation further comprises a sequence control configured to allow display of content on the client instantiation, wherein the content is content that was previously displayed on a digital signage display. 
     
     
       18. The emergency notification system of  claim 17 , wherein the signage server, is configured to periodically emit heartbeat signals via HTTP protocols. 
     
     
       19. The emergency notification system of  claim 16 , further comprising one or more video surveillance cameras.